The Meaning of Ambition
by It'sWorthAShot
Summary: /Noun/ The desire and determination to achieve success. Best in written classes was good. Best in taijutsu was better. But why stop there? Self Insert
1. Chapter 1

**N/A: Hey all. =) I'm a terrible, terrible person who's unofficially abandoning my other WIP to start a new story and also a total hypocrite who hates authors who unofficially abandon fics. Yippee. This story may or may not get finished, will have very irregular updates, has no plot currently planned, and is an utterly unabashed Naruto OC Self Insert. =) Enjoy.**

 **Disclaimer:** I don't own Naruto.

 **Warnings:** occasional swearing

 **Prologue**

 _"Anyway, so I told him we were through, and do you know what he said?"_

Drying her hands on a tea towel as she balanced her phone between her shoulder and ear, Sara grinned. "What?"

 _"He said,"_ her friend affected an unflattering nasal tone, _"'You're never gonna find another guy as good as me, baby-'"_ both girls snorted, _"and then he had the gall to say he'd be waiting for me to come crawling back, and I was like, 'Are you shitting me, Dave?' and I just left. I just- ugh. Can you believe this asshole?"_

"He was a dick," Sara agreed supportively, beginning to wipe down the bench top. "I'm glad you're not taking his crap anymore, Ti."

 _"Yeah, me too."_ Tiarna let out an explosive sigh, the sound tinny over the phone's sub-par speakers. _"I'm just... this is so_ frustrating _. Do I just_ attract _assholes, or something? Fuck, I'm so over this."_

Sara scrubbed at a patch of an unidentifiable sticky substance, mulling over how to respond. It was true, sadly; her gorgeous, extroverted best friend had had a string of bad luck on the dating scene, starting with her old crush who'd asked her out on a dare before publicly dumping her a week later, and culminating in Dave Herrings, who was apparently no less than a arrogant, misogynist pig.

"Maybe you're just too nice," she offered after a moment. She snickered, "Or maybe their brains just aren't grown yet."

Both girls laughed.

 _"Mm, maybe."_

They fell into a comfortable silence, Tiarna just breathing softly while Sara finished wiping down and hung the cloth up to dry.

"How's gym going?" Sara asked eventually, falling back on the familiar topic. Casting a critical eye around the kitchen, which revealed no hidden messes, she cracked her back and padded down the hall to her room.

Tiarna made a vaguely annoyed sound. _"Chloe and Bridget are arguing again,"_ she revealed dryly, referring to the two juniors whose notorious tiffs had sent the drama level in the gym skyrocketing ever since the latter had joined at the start of the year. _"Debbie sent them home early yesterday, and now_ Claire _'s pissed at Bridget too 'cause their mum had to take them both at once, and_ Debbie _'s annoyed with_ me _'cause apparently I should have been there to break them up. Never mind that I wasn't even involved."_

Sara laughed, feeling a little pang of nostalgia in her chest. "Sounds fun," she commented lightly.

 _"Mm, yeah, totally. Anyway, I finally got my Stalder-Hiccup connection on bars yesterday, so that's something."_

She cheered. "Hey! Congrats!"

 _"Yeah,"_ Tiarna laughed. _"Took me forever, though. You got it back when we were Level 6."_

"Hah! My technique was crap, though. The number of times I stacked..." She trailed off, grinning as she recalled face-planting into the mats again and again. On one memorable occasion she'd even cracked her head on the high bar before bouncing off to lie dazed and groaning on the floor.

Her friend giggled. _"Haha, true. I thought you were gonna give yourself a concussion!"_

"Nah, had vault for that."

 _"Oh my god, your tsuk, yes! I remember that! You almost broke your nose, haha! How did you even do that?"_

"I had the mats too high," Sara groaned ruefully. "'Cause I'd been doing it into the pit before that. Debbie wanted me to start going to mats, but I'd already walked back so I just left Steph's mats in. I didn't realize there were two. From my mark it just looked like one."

 _"Lol. Smart one."_

"Mm, the doctors thought so too."

They both laughed.

"...I kind of wish I could go back," Sara admitted, after a pause. "Like, I know, at the time, quitting was the best choice, 'cause I'd been on rehab for, like, three years, and my stupid _osteochondritis dissecans_ or whatever kept coming back, but..."

 _Gymnastics was my whole life_ , she didn't say.

She didn't need to. There was an unspoken acknowledgment between elite gymnasts that past a certain point in the sport, there was no going back. Gymnasts sold their souls to be the best, to be the one standing on the first place podium at the end of the day, and gymnastics kept those souls forever - regardless of whether one had quit two years ago, or a lifetime.

 _"You could,"_ Tiarna offered quietly, sounding hopeful. _"You could come back. It'd be just like our old team again."_

For a moment, Sara allowed herself to dream.

It'd be like coming home, walking into the gym again - the equipment strewn everywhere like one giant tripping hazard, as per usual. Tiarna and Steph would be there, her old teammates, practicing beam drills or gossiping around the chalk bucket. Debbie, her coach, yelling at them to get a move on. Her junior coach, Elena, calling instructions in heavily accented English interspersed with Russian. Everywhere, younger girls busily at work, trying not to let their coaches catch them watching the senior's routines instead of training.

She opened her eyes.

Two years was a long time to be out of competitive gymnastics. She'd always known, as a junior, that time was against her, that eventually puberty would catch up to her and wreck havoc on her body. But it was one thing to weather the change in her strength to mass ratio while training five days, eight sessions, twenty-eight hours a week, and quite another to get back into the sport after two years spent doing no more exercise than was required to fit into her jeans.

Sara let out a slow breath. "...I think I'm a little old, Ti," she said, trying not to sound bitter.

 _"Seventeen is not too old!"_ Tiarna protested loyally, but they both knew it was a lie.

"It's too old to be competitive," Sara amended. "I could come back, but I'd be back at Level 6, if that. I've lost all my strength, Ti," she admitted, voice pained. "I'd be out with injuries within a month. And my arms wouldn't even last that long."

Therein lay the truth of the matter. Though it had broken her heart, she'd been forced from the sport by a serious injury in what should have been her prime. If she went back now, taller, heavier, weaker at seventeen, she'd be risking not only new injuries, but also the reappearance of her _osteochondritis dissecans_ , which had nearly cost her her arms.

The crushed cartilage in her elbows, which even now ached and spasmed with the slightest hyperextention of her arms, wouldn't survive the brutal training she'd require to get back into shape.

"I wish I could," Sara said quietly. "I do. But I can't, and that's life. And it's not the end of the world," she said, trying to inject some positivity into her voice. "I do taekwondo, now, remember. That's pretty fun."

It wasn't the same, and they both knew it. She was too old to go back to gym. Too old to be anything amazing in taekwondo, what with the way black belt gradings were spread out years apart for each advancing level. She'd poured her childhood into gymnastics, her dreams, her fears, her pride, her pain, her ambition. And now she was too old.

Sara almost wanted to laugh, or maybe cry. Seventeen, not even an adult, legally, and she was already too old.

What a waste.

Biting her lip before the tears could spill out, she quickly made her excuses. "Hey, look," she said, proud that her voice was only a little rough, "I was about to head to the park, so I'll talk to you later, 'kay?"

 _"Alright, see you."_

She disconnected with a tap, then immediately doubled over with a wave of wretched, gasping grief, curling into her pillow.

 _"Oh god,"_ she croaked, voice cracking.

All she'd wanted, all she'd ever wanted, was to be something incredible. The gold medals didn't matter, never had. The judges' scores didn't. It had been performing, dancing, _flying_ , landing, that mattered. Being the strongest, the _best_ , not because she'd won, but because _everyone could see it_ and it wouldn't have mattered if the scores never came, if they'd never existed at all, because she was going to be _so fucking good_ that there'd be no question that she was the best in the room, the best in the _whole goddamn world_ -

But no.

She'd fucked up, gotten injured and, despite all the warnings, despite common sense, she'd hidden it. She'd hidden the ache, the ache that turned into splitting pain, because she'd been scared she'd be pulled out before Nationals. She'd hidden it until it left her lying crumpled on the gym floor, crying and shaking and in so much pain she blacked out.

 _"Alright, given your condition, you have three options, Sara," Dr Andrew Graham said seriously, steepling his fingers._

 _"Firstly, you could quit. Given a few years of rest, the damage to your cartilage may possibly be reversed."_

 _Frozen in the slightly too-cold office, Sara could only bite her lip, arms immobilized by the double sling._

 _"Secondly, you could go in for surgery. This would involve a metal pin being inserted into each of your elbows to hold them together, which, after a few months rehab, would theoretically allow you to continue gymnastics." Sara straightened minutely, but he waved her down. "I must warn you though: this type of surgery has only a seventy percent chance of success, and has been known to cause complications later in life." He looked at her gravely. "Something to consider."_

 _"Thirdly." He paused. "This is not truly an option, and you'll understand why in a moment. You could, of course, choose to disregard either of the first two options, and continue training regardless. But I will tell you now - should your elbows continue to deteriorate at the same rate until you are eighteen years old, the damage will be irreversible. You will never be able to use your arms again."_

In the end, the choice to quit had been the most logical one.

Knowing that hadn't made it hurt any less.

Her breathless sobbing having subsided, Sara lay on her bed, staring blankly up at the ceiling. A final, lonely tear trailed its way down her face; it clung to her nose, caught in the dip of her lip for a moment, then fell away to join the wet stain on her pillow.

She would have given anything, she thought suddenly, desperately. She would have given anything in her power to have a second chance. To be young again.

"But that's not how life works," she whispered, smiling wetly; bitterly, resignedly.

She closed her eyes and sighed, and when she opened them again she felt slightly better. Groping at her bedside table her for her tissue box, she groaned when her fingers met nothing but air.

"Ugh, fine. Downstairs it is."

Not bothering to turn on the light, though the sky had darkened considerably while she'd been wrapped up in her self pity, she stumbled out of her room and began to feel her way down the stairs, grumbling all the while.

So caught up in her thoughts was she, she failed to spot the lone sock decorating the staircase, and slipped.

Like a bizarre, ironic parody of every time she'd ever stacked a skill in training, her feet went out from underneath her and her skull slammed into the ground. Only, this time, the ground was not a soft foam mat, but a concrete step under hard tiles.

By the time her brother arrived home from work, the pool of blood under her head had dried to a reddish brown stain, and Sara, the teenage ex-gymnast, the high school student, the supportive friend, the sister, the daughter... was undeniably dead.

...

 **N/A: Wow. Okay so writing what is, essentially, my own death-via-sock is a little... morbid. Also, I'm now a little traumatized at the thought of going down the stairs, seeing as in my house the stairs are regularly home to random slippery paraphernalia. Yikes.**

 **Jokes aside, this fic is going to be quite painful for me. To be honest, this fic is a bit of psychological experiment. I'm hoping that by getting some of this down in writing, I'll be getting it OFF my chest. And seeing as this character, Sara, is based on myself, you'll be privy to a lot of things I don't usually tell people. Things I'm scared of, things I dream about, things I think and hope and hate and love, poured out for you in narrative form. So please be gentle with me. I guess that's all I can ask.**


	2. Chapter 2

**N/A: Hello again! =) So apparently my muse is not done with me yet. It's been dragging around by the ear for a while, but I finally got this chapter out. It's surprisingly hard to write from the perspective of a teenager in a baby's body. I think it turned out okayish. Hope y'all enjoy. =)**

 **Disclaimer:** I don't own Naruto.

 **Warnings:** occasional swearing, crappy Google Translate Japanese

 **Chapter 1**

Sara's first waking emotion was panic, because she distinctly remembered falling on the stairs, and she had to get up _now_ , before someone saw and thought she'd been hurt. Injury from her own carelessness was _not acceptable_ , she'd get pulled out, she had to _get up_ -

But she couldn't.

Before even opening her eyes, Sara realized that she couldn't lift her head. It was so _heavy_ , her whole body felt like lead, like a dead-weight, and she couldn't _move, oh god, **oh god-**_

Her toes twitched.

Sara stopped. Wriggled her toes again. Then her fingers.

 _Oh,_ she thought, mildly embarrassed. She took a deep breath. _Well. That's good, then._

She opened her eyes.

Everything was a bit blurry, the lights too bright and surrounded by halos, like that time she'd stayed in the pool for three hours straight and had been half blind for the rest of the day. That was alright, she could deal. She just needed to figure out what was going on.

Exerting a tremendous amount of effort, Sara managed to fold onto her side, becoming aware as she did so of the thin tube inserted in her left nostril. She went cross-eyed trying to look at it, but gave up after a minute to squint at her surroundings instead. Well, this clearly wasn't her house, because the walls were a shiny-clean white, not dirt-smudged cream. A hospital, then, she decided.

This realization was followed by some relief. She knew hospitals. Hospitals were safe. She must have hit her head badly when she fell, that was all. Mum and dad would be worried, and pissed. Her brother was probably laughing his ass off.

Her eyelids began to droop. Unable to think of a good reason to stay awake, Sara let them.

She dreamt of bright sunlight and glory.

...

Over what must have been the next few days, Sara woke frequently, though a regular sleep schedule eluded her. She woke seemingly on a whim, and slept at the most inconvenient times, like when she needed to go to the bathroom.

(The urge to go was always gone when she woke though, so she didn't think too deeply about it.)

...

As time passed, her thoughts cleared, and the inconsistencies began to stack up. _Why am I so tired?_ she wondered. _Where are my parents? How can I go days without going to bathroom?_

She began keeping track of the days as best she could, noting when the ward's lights were dimmed to imitate night. Another week passed. Two. There was still no sign of her parents. Were they visiting when she was asleep?

She struggled to sit upright, but her limbs were not cooperating. Her core strength was just _gone_ , completely. And why was her head so heavy? What the hell had she done? Had her head injury damaged her motor control or something?

But that wasn't right, was it? She could _move_ , she was just- she was just so _weak_ , like a _jellyfish_ , like she hadn't used her muscles for- for... well, _a very long time!_ Just _how long_ had she been asleep?!

Weak muscles or no, she would not be deterred. The bed she was in had bars, like a cot ( _why_ did it have bars? And no sheet or pillow?), which Sara fumbled for blindly, her eyes still not having cleared. Then, with a combination of strategic rolling, butt sliding, bracing, and pushing with her stupid, stubby, flabby legs ( _wrong, wrong, wrong, how long?!_ ) she managed to prop herself up on the bars.

And- oh.

 _Oh._

...

There really was no right way to deal with realizing you were a baby again.

On one hand, it felt incredibly therapeutic to scream her lungs out for a while. And since she was a baby, no one could tell her to shut up, could they! In fact, the nurse that rushed in to pick her up appeared to be more excited and relieved than anything. She cradled Sara to her chest, swaying gently and cooing to her in a language she couldn't recognize. In the end, it felt rude to scream right in the lady's face, so Sara trailed off into a series of sniffles that didn't, she thought, convey her _panic-horror-grief-bewilderment_ nearly as well.

On the other hand? Well, on _that_ hand, Sara had no idea what she was doing. This was so _weird_ , what was she supposed be doing, thinking? There was no point thinking negatively when it wouldn't change a thing, but then was she just supposed to ignore what she _felt_?

And it hurt, _it hurt, **it hurt**_ , she was stuck, she was lost, she was alone, she was _dead_ \- because that was the only explanation. She'd killed herself falling down the stairs, and _how fucking dumb was that?_ How _pointless?_ She'd just _slipped_ , _it was a stupid mistake_ , it was so _stupid_ \- and she wanted to take it back, _please, please pleasepleaseplease-_

But life didn't work like that. She'd said it herself, hadn't she?

...

She slept and she woke and she felt numb all over.

Wasn't this what she'd always wanted? Another chance? To be young again?

Why did she only ever see what she wanted in hindsight?

...

But then.

It _was_. This _was_ a second chance. She _was_ young again. She had a _whole life_ before her. And... if she couldn't go back... then...

...

It was a bright, sunny day when Sara began to let go of the past. She knew this because, for the first time since her dea- _birth_ , the nurse - a different, younger one - took her outside. She was placed on a soft blanket on the grass, stomach down, and oh- this was new. She hadn't been able to lie on her stomach before!

She wriggled happily for a few minutes, entertaining the nurse, if her giggles were anything to go by. Sara cooed back, thoroughly content for the first time in a long while. Everything looked different when you were a baby. That lady beetle, for instance! It was the size of her thumb nail, surely!

She stuck out her thumb to compare, but the beetle flew away. _Aw._

 _But look!_ A person! Two people! Three!

Sure enough, a young couple were approaching, guiding a toddler who couldn't have been much older than herself. He was... two, maybe? Three at a stretch. All chubby cheeks and dark, fluffy hair that Sara's fingers itched to grasp a tuft of.

"Bwaa!" She said in greeting, kicking her feet.

He stared back at her curiously, then up at his parents, obviously wondering what this odd, tiny person was. The parents exchanged glances, then the woman smiled, delicately guiding her son towards Sara, while the man hung back with a neutral expression.

 _"Ohayōgozaimasu!"_ she greeted the nurse cheerfully- and, was that Japanese? Huh. _"Kore wa anata no kodomodesu ka?"_

Sara blinked. What did that mean? She'd taken Japanese briefly, years ago, but nowadays her understanding of the language consisted of saying 'yes', 'no', 'good morning', 'thank you', 'sorry', 'Hello, my name is Sara', and the all-important, 'Excuse me, where are the toilets?'

 _"Ā, īe,"_ the nurse replied with a laugh. _"Īe, kanojo wa minashigodesu. Watashi wa koko de byōin de hataraite imasu."_

"Bu?" She burbled questioningly. The little boy squatted next to her. _"...On'maehanandesuka?"_

Sara squinted. That sounded familiar. Was he asking what her name was? "Sawa?" She mumbled uncertainly. Was that even her name anymore? On some old instinct, she glanced at the nurse for confirmation, only to see her looking like she'd seen a ghost. _"Kami!_ _Ā, nanto gūzendesu, haha!"_ The young woman exclaimed, shaking her head. _"Kanojo no namae wa saradesu."_

"Sawadesu?" She parroted, wide eyed. That was her name! She got to keep her name? The other lady giggled, saying something to the nurse. Sara wasn't listening. With only momentary fumbling, she got her knees under her and sat up. "Sawa!" She said again, more clearly, knocking one chubby fist sloppily on her chest. "Me?"

 _What if..._

 _"_ Dooyou speagin gish?" She tried hopefully. "Myn... naaymiz Sawa." The nurse and lady made cooing noises, and Sara's heart sank. "Iwaz reiinanett'd!" She pleaded. "Imm nodda baby! Hewp me!"

No reaction other than more cooing.

Sara slumped. It had been a long shot anyway. But what were the odds that she'd be named 'Sara' again? One in a million? She supposed she should just be grateful to keep her name at all, though the pronunciation was different - closer to 'Sala' than 'Sara'. It was something, anyway. One last tie to her old life. Was that a good thing or a bad thing? She wondered. Would it be better to have a completely blank slate? She'd been given a carte blanche on this new life, a chance to start all over- but then, was it really a blank slate if she had all her memories as baggage? Would she have been better off _without_ them? But then she wouldn't really be _Sara_ anymore, would she? What was a person, but the sum of their experiences? She wondered if-

 _~POKE~_

Sara _eeped_ , reeling back, only to overbalance and tumble onto her backside. She lay there, blinking up at the little boy who looked back, wide-eyed, one finger held out incriminatingly. Had he just _poked_ her? In the _face_? Who _did_ that?

Struggling upright, she reached out with intent to poke him right back, only for him to lean back out of her reach. Determined, she crawled speedily towards him, while he scooted further away with a faintly alarmed expression. Putting on a burst of speed, she latched on to his leg and promptly sat on him.

He froze.

"Baa boy," she said severely, poking him in the chest. And then, when that didn't have the desired effect, she poked him on the nose for good measure. "Baa."

For a moment, neither moved. Then slowly, he raised his finger-

 _"Itachi! Nanishiteruno?"_ The grumpy looking man demanded, looking unimpressed.

Itachi ( _ah_ , her fangirl heart was dying of jealousy; what a _cool name!_ ) looked up with a doe-eyed, _who-me?_ expression. What a con-toddler. Sara blew a raspberry.

The man grunted, turning away. " _Mikoto, Itachi. Ikou."_

Immediately, Itachi scrambled to his feet, nevertheless managing to dislodge Sara with surprising gentleness. He was leaving? " _Aw..._ " Her bottom lip trembled.

Itachi looked down at her almost guiltily and patted her head. " _Gomen, Sara-chan. Baibai."_

He paused, then, with a furtive glance towards his father, quickly poked her on the forehead and ran away.

Sara gaped.

Then she squealed indignantly.

 _"Baaa boy! Tachiii!"_

 _..._

Sara didn't see her new friend/poking rival again for a long time, though various nurses brought her outside every second day. She might have been more disappointed if her mind hadn't already been occupied by more pressing concerns - such as her introduction to nappy changes, which had hitherto been conducted while she slept. Her sight finally cleared enough for her to make out the chart hanging above her cot, which pronounced her to be 42 days, or 6 weeks old.

At seven weeks, her schedule changed.

...

Even with the language barrier, it didn't take long for Sara to catch on to what was happening. A middle aged couple had appeared at her cot, led by the oldest of the nurses, who lifted her and carefully passed her over to the woman. The nurse murmured something Sara didn't catch, though she thought she heard her name in it.

A quiet moment passed.

"Sara," the woman whispered, tears appearing in her eyes. _"Kanojo wa kanpekidesu."_ The man, her husband, wrapped his arm around her, almost reverently brushing his thumb over her tiny hand. _His_ hands, in contrast, were huge, calloused and warm. _Was this...?_

 _"Korera wa anata no atarashi oyadesu, Sara-chan,"_ the nurse said gently.

Sara's eyes grew wet. _Oya._ She knew that word.

 _Parents._

Slowly, deliberately, she wrapped her little fingers around his thumb and held it close.

* * *

 **A/N: Phew! That was hard! Anyway, haven't really got any end notes for this chapter.**

 **Translations:**

 _Ohayōgozaimasu - good morning_

 _Kore wa anata no kodomodesu ka? - Is this your child?_

 _Īe, kanojo wa minashigodesu. Watashi wa koko de byōin de hataraite imasu. - No, she's an orphan. I work at the hospital here._

 _Onamaehanandesuka? - What's your name?_

 _Kami!_ _Ā, nanto gūzendesu! - God! Ah, what a coincidence!_

 _Kanojo no namae wa saradesu - Her name is Sara_

 _Nanishiteruno? - What are you doing?_

 _Ikou - Let's go_

 _Gomen - sorry_

 _Baibai - bye bye_

 _Kanojo wa kanpekidesu - She's perfect_

 _Korera wa anata no atarashi oyadesu - These are your new parents_

 **If you speak Japanese and I've made a mistake, please let me know! I don't particularly trust Google Translate, but I don't know Japanese myself so I didn't have much choice. Rest assured, the Japanese will be finished by the end of the next chapter at the very latest. Please review! =)**


	3. Chapter 3

**N/A: Holy moley, I'm actually back. After a whole year off. Can I get a 'HELL YEAH!'? :D :D :D**

 **So believe or not, I haven't been completely slacking off since the last time I posted; I've been rewriting this chapter about once a month, and hating every version of it until this one. The reason I know I don't hate this one is because it's taken me three days to write - as in, three whole, consecutive days where I reread what I'd written the previous day and _didn't_ feel like I wanted to die of embarrassment. This story has certainly been a frustrating little bugger, but in the end I'm happy I kept at it, because _here we are_.**

 **Disclaimer:** Don't own Naruto (not that there's any actual Naruto in this chapter, but whatever)

 **Warnings:** more crappy Google Translate Japanese, sorry. It's almost done!

 **Chapter 2**

In the past, Sara had been many things - a gymnast, a violinist, a bookworm, a dancer, a public speaker, a history buff, and a taekwondo student, to name a few. She wasn't always the best at what she did (in fact, most often not), but what successes she could claim, she had earned, and she was proud of them.

Naturally, all of these things were now irrelevant.

As a baby, she had very little independence. Her parents decided what she wore, what she ate, where she went, what she did. They were watchful and easily frightened the way all new parents were, with only the best of intentions, but - reasonably - with very little thought to the opinions of their young daughter, who, nevertheless, very much chafed at the lack of freedom. And, as bad situations were wont to do, this state of affairs seemed set to go on and on and on, with no end in sight.

Patience, Sara was unsurprised to learn, was not a virtue one magically acquired via reincarnation.

...

Time crawled like a great-great grandfather snail.

In comparison, Sara had become quite adept at crawling with speed - and climbing, and walking, and generally doing many things a six month old had no business doing. There was very little else to do; it was, in fact, entirely possible to become _bored_ of _sleeping._ And eating. And unwillingly soiling her nappy, which was every bit as disgusting as she'd ever imagined. None of the soft, too-big-to-swallow toys her parents gave her could hold her attention for long, even when she was occasionally overwhelmed by the bizarre urge to stick them in her mouth and chew on them like a dog... without teeth.

Perhaps it was inevitable, then, that she turned to more cognitive pursuits.

There was meditation, for one. The idea felt appropriately profound and grown up enough that it appealed to her battered pride. In reality though, she knew nothing of proper technique and so it mostly boiled down to sitting very still and 'clearing her mind' - and in the background, wondering whether she was supposed to be breathing in through the nose and out through the mouth, or in through the mouth and out through the nose...

Well, meditation was a bit of a bust. Still, she kept at it, if only for something to pass the time.

More significantly, she had chosen to dedicate a large chunk of her energy to learning Japanese as fast as possible. This was made easier, for once, by her parents.

 _"Anata wa k_ _uuu-_ _fukudesu ka,_ _S_ _ara_ _-chan_ _?_ _"_ Her mother cooed, squeezing out a portion of orange baby food. _"_ _Ha_ _aa_ _i,_ _kaa-chan_ _!_ _"_ She answered herself in a high pitched imitation of a young voice. _"_ _Watashi wa hi_ _iii_ _jō ni kūfukudes_ _u!"_

 _Are you hungry, Sara-chan?_ Sara translated from her high chair. _Yes, mummy, I'm very hungry!_ She clapped her hands a little clumsily and beamed. "Hai, kaa-tan!"

It was a phenomenon Sara had read about once, the way adults unconsciously modified their speech patterns when communicating with young children. The concept of 'baby talk' was universal, apparently, but there was also more to it than just being 'cute' or a simplification of normal speech. The higher pitch allowed for a greater range of emotional expression, and coupled with the dragged-out emphasis on certain words and over-exaggerated body language, baby talk took the significance and connotations of normal conversation and blew them up under a magnifying glass for easy reading. Perfect for a baby - or an adult not yet fluent in the language.

Over time, some of her former vocabulary had returned to her. It had been added to by a growing collection of common words and phrases she had begun to pick up, and even - eventually - recall without prompting. Things like a sing-songed, _"shūshin jikan!"_ before bed each night, and a gentle, _"kichōna on'nanoko,"_ accompanied by a kiss to the forehead. She didn't always know what they translated as, but she knew what they _meant_ , which was nearly as good.

As she opened her mouth for the spoon, Sara daydreamed.

The future was so wide and open. One day soon, she'd be able to start building a personality for herself, in a way that other people could _recognise_ – introversion or extroversion, confidence, intelligence, compassion, curiosity, amenability. She, unlike any other, possessed the unique providence of being _aware_ of her own potential… and her flaws.

But shortcomings could be improved upon. Talents could be polished. This time, she could _choose_ who she was going to be.

 _What a thought!_

It was like writing the first, exhilarating pages of a new story – taking the base idea of an ordinary girl and beginning to carve out the shape of her, transforming a standard model into something unforgettable… a main character that people would remember for generations after she passed.

She needed to be- _more_ than a girl. More than what she'd been.

Outside of her head, she finished the last spoonful, and kaa-chan lifted her gently from the chair. She was deposited on a blanket on the floor, but hardly noticed, she was so lost in thought.

The thing was: for all her ambition, Sara had never _been_ more than slightly above-average. She'd had ability in spades – or so she'd been told again and again ("You have _so much potential,_ but-") – but she'd also had laziness in bucketfuls and inconsistency in wheelbarrows. Her brief flashes of brilliance had been overwhelmingly drowned out by an excess of mediocrity.

So that had to be the first thing to change.

Just at the thought, a thread of reluctance began to wind its way through the back of her mind. That future sounded… _hard._ And lonely. And un-fun _._ So full of burgeoning determination and inspiration right in the moment, she nearly forced it down, the way she normally did… but then she stopped.

Just froze her thoughts for a beat.

Took a breath.

 _No._ If she did everything the same way she'd been doing it her whole life, there was no reason to expect anything to change. And if she just pushed that thread away now, it would be back soon enough – that jovial little voice in the back of her mind that excused her when she took an extra break, when she procrastinated on assignments until the last second, when she broke her diet with a cup of chicken salted chips, when- when she let her determination slip- _just once! –_ and then _it didn't kill me last time,_ and _I'll work it off later_ , _I'll train harder tomorrow, I'm too tired right now, it's not like anyone will notice if I-_

BUT.

But, it wasn't about _other_ people noticing, was it? _Sara_ noticed. _She_ knew.

And the guilty pleasure of cheating herself would slowly fade to just _guilt._ And then frustration. Determination. A single day or two days of motivation, and then- then it would start _all over again._

And again and again and again.

' _Unless something changes a whole awful lot,'_ murmured a knowing voice that sounded awfully like her mum – her _first_ mum – ' _NOTHING is going to get better. It's not.'_

And like the little boy in The Lorax, if she wanted to make a real, _long-lasting_ , positive difference, the first seed had better be a truffula tree, not just another weed. So…

She closed her eyes and took another deep breath.

 _What am I so afraid of?_

Because - reluctance, guilt, frustration, determination – they all had one thing in common. _Fear._ Reluctance to change for fear of the unknown, guilt for fear of consequences or judgement, frustration for fear of failure, determination… for fear of being _stuck._

And she _was_ stuck, really, so everything she'd been terrified of her whole life was true. There were no monsters under the bed, they were in her _head_. They'd made themselves quite at home there, like the tar in a smoker's lungs, and every minute she breathed in fear of them, they grew a little stronger. A little heavier.

And suddenly, she could feel the weight of them, a leaden band across her chest, in her throat. She tried to draw in a breath, and her lungs shuddered and shook. Her eyes watered, wide open. She wheezed.

" _Daijōbudesuka?_ _Kichōna_ _? Sara-chan?"_ She was picked up, cradled against someone's chest, and she could barely see – tears, or black spots on her vision, or both. Her throat worked. "Can'… bweathe, _kaa-t…"_ English. Japanese. Her head spun. She couldn't see or hear right. Couldn't cry. Not enough air.

" _Sara-chan_?" She sounded scared. Sara was scared too. " _Joru! Hayaku kite! Nanika ga machigatte iru!"_

There was a blur of sound and colour. A hand to her forehead, jostled movement, the sudden impression of _space_ and blue-grey sky, shouting, and all through it all, a sense of overwhelming terror in the air.

She blacked out.

…

 _Zensoku,_ the doctor, a greying man with an old, silvery scar along his jaw, said, but Sara didn't need a translation.

Asthma.

She felt like a bit of a fool.

She'd assumed, being born again, that she wouldn't have to deal with asthma this time. With everything that had happened, and then six months without a single wheeze, the thought hadn't even crossed her mind. Perhaps it should have – after all, she'd kept her name, and her mind, and, now that she thought about it, her hair _had_ been this same shade of pale blonde for years before it darkened to brown. So chances were, she'd come with the whole damn package.

Well, at least there were some advantages to that, assuming it wasn't just a series of coincidences. She knew her health was relatively stable up to seventeen years of age. She knew she had a family history of lymphoma, bowel cancer, and gluten intolerance to watch out for. She knew she had pale skin that would burn easily and needed to be protected. She knew she wouldn't have to worry about acne, but that she'd probably need glasses by the age of thirty.

She knew _asthma –_ that panicking, laughing too much or cold air could trigger it just as easily as dust, pollen or the flu. She knew to take her preventer every morning and every night, and to go to the doctor if the dose stopped working. She knew how much Ventolin she could take during an attack before she'd get lightheaded.

In a strange way, it was almost reassuring. _This,_ she knew. _This,_ she could deal with.

She didn't want to think about the cause of this attack. Panicking about not having packed her inhaler for a three day camp was one thing – panicking about a little psychological examination was entirely another. She'd almost be embarrassed, if she wasn't so past the point of resignation about her asthma and all the ways it liked to interfere with her life.

These things happened. It was best to just learn from it and move on.

…

Sara spent the night in hospital under observation, wide awake while her parents dosed in uncomfortable-looking chairs on either side, neither having convinced the other to go home and rest. The room she was in reminded her of the maternity ward, save that it smelt more strongly of cleaning product than nappy powder, which honestly was not much of an improvement.

Somewhere around one in the morning, she gave up on sleep entirely. Sitting up, she scooted to the edge of the cot and let her legs dangle, hugging the bars and staring wistfully into space. There seemed to be so much to think about, and yet, she was so _sick_ of thinking.

Planning had never been her forte. The extent of her caution was usually peering warily at the water for a few seconds, then jumping in feet first, instead of head first. She liked to think, but she didn't like to _wait,_ and really, she deserved a sticker for making it this far already.

It was just that- well, she was scared. She was still scared. At the start of this whole thing she'd been overwhelmed by the idea of it all- the _potential_ of getting to take the test a second time, having already seen the answer sheet. It seemed _inevitable_ that she would succeed at all her goals, simply by virtue of having the _opportunity_.

And yet, she was the same person she'd been before. And it would be _so easy_ to fall into the same traps.

And it would break her, she realized. If she'd been afraid of dying with regrets last time, now it was twice as bad. To have had _two shots_ at life, when everyone had only ever had one, and to _still fail?_ The agony would unbearable.

 _I can't fail,_ she thought, with more certainty than she'd ever held in her life. It settled within her like a fact: _the universe is made of atoms,_ _I am a gymnast,_ and _I cannot fail._

 _I refuse._

 **N/A: This would be the perfect place for a gymnastics quote, but unfortunately I already have one quote in this chapter and I'm trying SO HARD not to turn this story into my character just sprouting off all the awesome quotes I know. But- but- but- this isn't technically part of the chapter now so I can tell you now! :D There's this gymnast called Nastia Liukin (she's an Olympic champ and she's awesome, that's all you really have to know) who was my idol for pretty much my entire gymnasthood, and she said:**

 **"I don't run away from a challenge because I am afraid. Instead, I run towards it, because the only way to escape fear is to trample it beneath your feet."**

 ***sighs happily* So cool.**

 **Anyway, I very much hope you enjoyed this chapter and hopefully the next one won't take me another year. :O Please leave reviews! I'd love to hear what you think. See you next time!**

 **EDIT: OMG OMG OMG, I made a mistake! It was actually Nadia Comaneci who said that quote! I'm really bad with names! (In my defense, she is also an Olympic champ and very very awesome.) Oh well, I like them both!**


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